Yarns
by Marauder-In-Disguise
Summary: Drabbles and ficlets - a safe storage place for my mini-musings...multiple pairings, multiple genres.
1. Pyjamas

**A/N – *Marauder sneaks back in to the fandom and drops this on the table* I'm back! Well, kind of. I've decided that although I'm not really up to actual stories in this fandom (at the moment at least) then drabbles and very short oneshots will be my thing. Some of these I wrote at least a year ago for a challenge over on VAMB, any with a song title come from Bonesbird's Drabble Challenge over on Facebook and the rest come from me…Man, it is good to be back!**

**Disclaimer – I own nothing. **

"Lieutenant Paris, report to the bridge immediately. This is an emergency."

As though to illustrate the captain's words, the red alert warnings joined in with her desperate voice. Tom tumbled from his bed, straightened up and was rewarded with another urgent, "NOW, MISTER PARIS!"

He ran.

In his barely awake state, he didn't notice the silencing of the red alert, or the fact that when the doors to the bridge opened, there was no sign of a disaster.

He _did_ notice that the bridge crew was smiling, waiting for him, with Neelix weighed down under an enormous cake.

"Happy Birthday, Tom!" Neelix cried.

Tom looked down at his garish checked pyjamas, suddenly painfully aware that he had foregone his uniform in his haste. A slow blush crept up his neck as he took in the gleeful expression on the faces of the Doctor and Chakotay, the amused sympathy on Harry's and the fact that B'Elanna was bent almost double over her console unable to breath for laughing.

"Well Mister Paris, we had intended to give you a bit of a treat," the captain could hardly conceal her delight, "But it looks like you've managed to give us all one instead."


	2. Leola Root

"I'm not sure I can do this anymore, Chakotay."

"Come on, Kathryn, it's not that bad."

"It is. It really is. The Cardassians could have worked for a hundred years and never come up with a worse torture than this."

"Don't you think you're exaggerating?"

"Not at all. If I'd have known what it would have lead to, I'd have had serious second thoughts about letting him come on board at all."

"You don't mean that," Chakotay smiled stoically, as Neelix chose that moment to approach their table, wielding a serving spoon and a pot.

"More leola root stew, captain?"


	3. Someone's Watching Over Me  Hilary Duff

_So I won't give up, no I won't break down_

_Sooner than it seems life turns around_

_And I will be strong, even if it all goes wrong_

_When I'm standing in the dark I'll still believe_

_Someone's watching over me_

It always started, inexplicably, as a tingling in his matrix that he knew he shouldn't feel. But feel it he did and the Doctor had long ago given up telling B'Elanna that there was something wrong with him. It took him a long time to realise that there was nothing the matter with him, and even longer to realise exactly what the feeling was.

One day he was thinking about Kes, for no particular reason other than she had appeared in his mind, and the tingling started. It was a quiet day in sickbay, so he thought some more about her and the tingling increased. Then he thought about something else and the tingling stopped. Then he thought about her again and it came back. As a man of science, he knew that there was nothing fuelling the coincidence except his imagination but that conviction did nothing to quiet the tiny voice at the back of his mind that said maybe, just maybe, Kes was watching him.

And if he could be found talking out loud after that, when he was working on his own, it was nobody's business but his.

And Kes' maybe. If she was listening.


	4. Clare Island, The Saw Doctors

_**Will you meet me on Clare Island  
>Summer stars are in the sky<br>We'll get the ferry out from Roonagh  
>And wave all our cares goodbye<strong>_

_-Clare Island, The Saw Doctor-_

"It's a beautiful place, Katie," Michael's eyes were bright, "The best time to go is at night, when you can see the stars."

"You haven't even told me where you're talking about!" Kathryn laughed, waiting for him to slow down, "Where is beautiful?"

"Clare Island, of course!" he exclaimed, "Don't tell me you've never heard of it?"

"Oh, I've heard of it," she smiled softly, "My mother used to sing me an old song about it." She began to sing under her breath words that she had not heard for a long time, and Michael's enthralled look was all the encouragement she needed to keep going.

"That's beautiful," he nodded at the end, humming the tune to himself, "I've never heard it."

"It's very old," she mused, eying Tom and Harry sat in the corner of the pub playing cards with a couple of the locals. Tom looked up, caught her eye and went back to his game with a small smile playing on his lips. Only a few days before, she remembered now, she had mentioned the song to him and then suddenly Michael was talking about a place he had never mentioned before and she was reminiscing and singing and having a wonderful time.

She reminded herself to make sure Tom got a break from his sickbay shift the next time Chakotay put together the duty rota.


	5. Of Spirit Guides and Short Tempers

B'Elanna gazed at the animal perched jauntily on the rock in front of her, not quite able to believe that even in the spirit world, her mixed heritage of human and Klingon would find a way to, quite frankly, piss her off.

"You're my animal guide?" she asked incredulously, her hands tightening on her lap.

"Yes," the animal replied, its head cocked to one side in a gesture that, had it been performed by a human, would have been patronising.

"My animal guide is a ratty, little mongrel _dog_?" she spat, "What, were all the real animals already taken the day I got in line?"

"You can think what you want," the dog said, its deliberately airy tone suggesting that if it had fingernails to inspect, it would have been doing so carefully, "But they sometimes say in your world that we are a reflection of the human's true self. Perhaps your anger is misdirected, B'Elanna Torres."

It only occurred to B'Elanna after she had jerked awake from the vision quest to find herself being watched by a particularly irritated Chakotay, that the dog had jumped away a split second before she lunged at it.

He raised an eyebrow, a much put upon look gracing his features. B'Elanna shrugged, her fingers tracing the pattern on the stone in the medicine bundle.

"I don't think spirituality is my thing."


	6. Time of Your Life, Green Day

**Another turning point a fork stuck in the road  
>Time grabs you by the wrist directs you where to go<br>So make the best of this test and don't ask why  
>It's not a question but a lesson learned in time<strong>

It was ironic that the first thing Chakotay ever did in the name of his peace loving father was to go to war. But then, he reasoned, if the son went to war it meant that the old man didn't have to.

Or at least, it would, if the father hadn't already lost his life to the cause.

Chakotay was not violent, by nature at least. He liked to box and Starfleet taught him to fight but he always preferred words to fists, even when he was small.

No such luck here though. Joining the Maquis meant one thing and one thing only; kill or be killed.

And the only thing Chakotay knew for sure was that he fully intended to live.


	7. Tuvok Muses

"_First Officer's Log, supplemental. We've transported the Captain and Mister Paris back to Sickbay. As for their offspring, I've decided to leave them in their new habitat"_

I would not condone the abandonment of children, but in this case, Commander Chakotay made the correct decision.

We have no idea as to how these children would develop and whilst the EMH would relish the challenge and the chance to boast about it, I would not appreciate being part of the debriefing, should we ever return home.

It would not be an easy task to explain to the admiralty as to why - besides criminals, holograms, Talaxians and Ocampa – we are also ferrying the illegitimate offspring of the captain and helmsman.

It is not, after all, the Starfleet way.


	8. Ready, Aim, Fire, New Found Glory

_**Then it hit me  
>Should I go that far<br>For a girl who doesn't ever  
>Really know what she wants?<br>**_

He'd waited.

He'd waited so long, and he'd said no to everyone who came along. He'd submitted to a voluntary celibacy not only of the body but of the mind as well. He'd acted as though she was his, as though she was as much in love with him as he was with her. He'd told himself that as soon as she was ready, she'd be there and he wouldn't have to be alone anymore.

And then she missed opportunity after opportunity, keeping him teetering on the edge of what he wanted. And he knew that she wasn't doing it on purpose, but sometimes it sure as hell felt like it.

So by the time Seven came along, he was in the mood to be flattered. He was in the mood to be loved.

He was in the mood to be selfish, just once.


	9. Doctor Joe

"Mister Paris, I have been thinking carefully about the situation and I believe I have come to a decision."

"And what decision would that be, Doc?" Tom asked, tearing himself away from B'Elanna's sleeping form and facing the EMH.

"I have decided on a name," he announced grandly, a smug look on his face.

"Well, that's great Doc, and it only took you seven years!" Tom teased, gently stroking Miral's hair as he smiled at the EMH, "So what is it?"

"My name," the Doc grinned, "Is Joe."

Trying hard to disguise the laugh as a cough, Tom nodded.

"Well, that's certainly not what I was expecting."

The Doctor frowned, "How so?"

"Well, it's quite a normal name really. I was expecting something much more…grandiose."

The EMH wrinkled his nose and sat down smartly in the second chair next to B'Elanna's bed. He reached out and Tom passed him the sleeping baby.

"I am aware, Mister Paris, that it is perhaps not what many people were expecting me to settle on," he said, rocking his god daughter gently backwards and forwards, "But I chose it as a tribute, to Lieutenant Carey, the last man to fall in the name of _Voyager._ Do you not think that it is an appropriate gesture?"

Bile rose suddenly in Tom's throat and he found himself unable to do anything but stare at the anxious face of the EMH. How could he have forgotten, so soon, about Joe? Joe Carey, who was under his command when he died so needlessly. Joe Carey, one of his wife's closest friends and father to two little boys who would never see him again.

"I'm sorry, Doc," he eventually managed to choke, surprised to find that tears were welling in his eyes, "I wouldn't have made a joke if I knew how serious it was. I think it's a great idea."

The relief was visible on the Doctor's face.

"I am glad you approve, Mister Paris. I did not want to upset you with my choice."

"Me?"

"Indeed. I know how difficult you found Mister Carey's death and I did not want the memory to be too painful for you," the Doctor was studying the pilot carefully and Tom reached up quickly to wipe at his eyes.

"That's very kind of you, Doc. I can't believe I forgot so soon. God, I'm terrible," he spat, disgusted at himself.

Thoughtfully ignoring Tom's emotional outburst, the Doctor leaned forwards reassuringly, "Do not feel so bad, Mister Paris. This last forty eight hours have been taxing for everyone, but particularly yourself and Lieutenant Torres. I do not believe Mister Carey would hold it against you. In fact, he would be pleased for you. Did you know that he once accompanied Lieutenant Torres to a scan when you were on an away mission?"

"I didn't."

"Hmmm. He insisted. And he was so excited for the pair of you. It was quite endearing."

"Well, I'll be damned."

"Indeed. So you think that my choice of name is appropriate?"

"I don't think you could have picked a finer one, Doc," Tom smiled weakly, as the memory of Joe Carey surfaced slowly in his mind and winked at him, "Or should I call you Joe?"


End file.
